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Eric Cantor floats year-end trigger bargain

Several times in a House Republican Conference meeting Wednesday morning in the Capitol, lawmakers brought up the defense cuts, attendees said.

Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon of California stood up and talked about the importance of national defense. Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), a member of McKeon’s committee, wanted Boehner to share his plan with the conference. Boehner declined in the meeting but later told reporters that he and Republican lawmakers would “prefer that we do this in a more responsible way.”

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Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.), who called the defense cuts a “total disaster,” said he’s told his party leaders about his views, but “I’m not getting any direction from leadership on the issue yet.”

Republican leadership aides believe Obama will feel a “tremendous amount of pressure” to engage with Congress to fix the defense sequester as he tries to run in defense-heavy states like Florida, North Carolina and Virginia.

On Wednesday, Cantor hinted that he was looking to move sooner.

“Let’s try to work incrementally [toward] a conclusion this session that could benefit all Americans,” Cantor said. “We Republicans do care about people that are out of work, we don’t want to raise taxes on anybody, we want to provide the help to the physicians and the providers in the health care industry of this country, and we want to make sure this country has a sound national defense policy.”

McKeon told a GOP whip meeting Tuesday that Panetta has delayed meeting with him and thinks that the Pentagon and White House are on different pages when it comes to the defense cuts.

Critics say efforts to change the automatic cuts show what’s wrong with Washington, given that the $1.2 trillion in spending cuts amounts to a fraction of a debt that has grown to more than $15 trillion.

Only about $71 billion, or 3 percent of mandatory spending, would be subject to the automatic cuts at the end of 2013, meaning a disproportionate amount of cuts would also affect areas like education, scientific research, housing and transportation, which comprise only 15 percent of the budget, according to the Congressional Research Service.

The talks between Cantor and the Senate is just one of many moving parts in a Capitol beginning to be consumed with wrapping up the first session of one of the most contentious Congresses in modern history. Boehner privately told Republicans on Wednesday that he wants to be out of town by Dec. 16, dubbing these few weeks “do-or-die” for the Congress.

Wow Politico...no story on Romney's bumbling interview with Bret Baier from Fox News. NYT, Washpo, The Page, all of them had stories on it...but not you guys? And you are supposed to be the place for politics...Ha! You really want that Obama v Romney match don't you?

Let it be. Pull the trigger. The time for compromise has passed, Repubs. Scramble if you want, but if you try to change what was agreed (super committee), President Obama will veto it. Your thoughts to hold the payroll tax cut and u/e insurance extensions hostage are not going to work this time. Weird nasty Republicans. If you want to cry like your leader Boener, just look in the mirror for the problem. It is you.

Interesting, in this bizarre political environment Cantor wants to back off spending cuts. This guy has as much credibility as the man in the moon! Where is the Tea Party on this issue? What next the dem's offering tax breaks for the rich?

Cantor: what a weasel. So, Cantor, you’re not really interested in cutting the debt after all, are you? You talk big… except when the cuts fall in areas your supporters care about. And you wonder why we don’t believe a word you say!

Cantor is Speaker Boehner's worst enemy - always working behind his back and striving for the spotlite. Cantor is a weasel. There is no reason for anyone to trust Cantor.

“We Republicans do care about people that are out of work, we don’t want to raise taxes on anybody"

The first part is really funny, and the second part means - "particularly our donors that are the 1%". So, without taxes, you'll cut something else to preserve our insane levels of defense spending. Keep it, Cantor.

I can’t believe republicans walked into a deficit cutting trap of their own making – with their eyes wide open. And now, after a collective: OOPS, their trying to weasel out of it. Well, they picked the right poster boy for the job. Hey Cantor: IT'S NOT GOING TO WORK!

Pass the Bowles/Simpson Deficit Commission plan. Anything less is too small to really do the job.

It "harpoons everybody's whale" and that's the only way the other side (whichever side you're on) is going to go along. We can go on with this "No tax increases of any kind" vs. "No entitlement cuts whatsoever" until the country collapses. This whole debate has become a childish failure of leadership.

I want something that looks pretty close to the Bowles/Simpson report and I want to see action, not endless propaganda.

Wow Politico...no story on Romney's bumbling interview with Bret Baier from Fox News. NYT, Washpo, The Page, all of them had stories on it...but not you guys? And you are supposed to be the place for politics...Ha! You really want that Obama v Romney match don't you?

Pass the Bowles/Simpson Deficit Commission plan. Anything less is too small to really do the job.

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I would agree with that... however, I think any other deals should be off the table..imo, there's a growing concensus to the trigger take place....anything congress does to circumvent that is just partisan politics...

Oh Oh some one must be getting heat from the industrial/military contractors. These *******s will do everything including starting another Vietnam 2 fiasco to keep the tax dollars flowing down the defense sewer. We **** away more money on defense than any one by a long shot but can not get enough. Next plan will be to cry about the defense jobs we will lose do to the cuts. If we let them off the hook on this then we might as well throw in the white flag until we can vote everyone of these hypocrites out and try a new batch.

Eric Cantor (R-VA) is attempting to work a bi-partisan plan to avoid the agreed to consequences of the Super-committee’s failure. There are three things that Cantor is doing wrong:

1. He is illuminating the disingenuous and duplicitous nature of the cliff-hanger strategy that the Republican and Democratic parties engaged in when they crafted and agreed to the consequences of failure. Isn’t this the very definition of waffling, flip-flopping, not having the courage of your convictions? If you can’t accept the results of failure, perhaps you should have shown the Stupor committee how to succeed; crafted a better agreement to start with; or not supported it.

2. He is engaging in the same ‘tried and failed’ methods that the illustrious professionals in Congress have been using for decades, and attempting to achieve different results than those that have been produced in the past. In other words, he is operating in an insane manner. Add a little extension here, a small benefit there in exchange for a reduce cut here and there. A pushing the problem down the road strategy.

3. He is persisting in working on the problem as framed by the political parties, rather than stepping forward and showing the American people that the political leaders of both stripes are failing them because they just don’t understand what the problems are and more importantly they don’t have a clue about how to effectively, meaningfully and creatively change the mind-set that is preventing the public from being served by their representatives instead of being served to their representatives.

Eric needs to operate counter to his name. He must become a Can-er and not a Can’t-er. The moment for Cantor to seize the day and emerge as a new political leader for America is perhaps upon him. If only he can glimpse a part of the vision for national salvation, he may be able to lead America into a new and saner future. He only needs to be able to free himself from old, antiquated, and ineffective views.

What's the matter GOP? Insane fiscal austerity measures not en vogue any more? I wonder what happened to change your mind? Oh yeah, 2012 is right around the corner, and your tea party won't save you during a full on Presidential election. Time to start passing something to smooth things over with the moderate independents after this past summer's embarrassing credit downgrade fiasco caused by your tea party freshmen.